


A Hundred Years in the Making

by AbschaumNo1



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, Fluff, Found Family, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), i guess, i just need them to be happy, no actual Endgame spoilers though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbschaumNo1/pseuds/AbschaumNo1
Summary: Five times Steve only draws others + 1 time he includes himself.





	A Hundred Years in the Making

**Author's Note:**

> This is for V, who chatficced this with me, and who has been screaming about IW with me since before we both saw it. ❤
> 
> Edit 2019.05.06: I edited the tags due to the release of Endgame and I guess this is an Endgame fix-it now because god knows it's better than whatever that was. (No actual movie spoilers though)

**1.**

The first time Steve picked up a sketch book after they finally beat Thanos he was at the medical facilities in Wakanda, sitting by Bucky’s side, waiting for him to finally wake up. They hadn’t been there for that long actually, but to Steve it was feeling like years instead of days. To think that he had lost Bucky again, if only temporarily, was just a little too much.

When he was done drawing, right before one of the others would come in to drag him off to get food and sleep, he looked down and realised that he had drawn Bucky. He looked peaceful like this, healthy, happy, and something inside Steve ached.

It was Phil who came in to coax him away from Bucky’s side that evening, dog and toddler in tow, and between Phil’s stern look, and the toddler who looked so much like Clint (who was lying next door, complaining about wanting to get out of here) he couldn’t say no.

“I think I’m going to retire,” he told Phil over dinner. “I want to hang up the shield for some time, maybe forever.”

Phil nodded. “You’ve been doing this without a proper break for so long, you deserve kicking back and enjoying your downtime.”

“You’re not going to tell me the world needs me?”

“No.” Phil laughed. “I actually think I need a break myself.”

“Gonna go be with the family?”

“Yeah. It took me long enough to tell them I’m alive, I need to catch up.”

Steve smiled. “I’m sure Clint’s gonna appreciate it.”

“I hope so.” Phil smiled back. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Steve shrugged. “I’ll see what Buck wants to do first. And then we can decide together.”

“Whatever you decide, I’m sure it’s going to be the right thing.”

Steve just nodded.

 

He almost filled the entire sketchbook by the time Bucky woke up. There were sketches upon sketches of him in the hospital bed, of doctors and nurses checking up on him, of people visiting. And Steve could easily blame it on how little choice he had in his subjects, but he wasn’t even going to start with that. He had always loved drawing Bucky, just as much as he had been in love with the man himself for a damn long time. There was no way he wouldn’t take the chance to draw him again now.

It was an interesting kind of irony that meant Steve was almost done with another drawing of Bucky’s sleeping face, the eyes the last thing that was missing, when the man himself woke and looked at him for the first time since Steve had to watch him die (again).

A faint smile stole across Bucky’s face as he said, “We gotta stop meeting like this, Rogers.”

Steve laughed and leaned in to press a quick kiss to the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “We really gotta,” he said.

 

**2.**

They settled in Wakanda, on invitation by T’Challa himself, and while Steve was only too glad to stick to his decision to finally retire, Bucky wasn’t quite ready to do the same.

“I gotta do some good out there after all the bad,” he said when they talked it through. “I got my down time when they fixed my brain. I’m fine.”

“Gonna be like old times then, with me waiting for you at home,” Steve joked.

Bucky smiled. “It ain’t. You’re a big punk now, I got a lot less to worry about when I’m gone.”

Steve laughed as he reached out to squeeze his hand.

 

It wasn’t like Steve didn’t do anything when Bucky was gone. He spent his days helping wherever he could, and with whatever people needed. And when there wasn’t anything to help with he learned. Thanks to the serum picking up the language wasn’t that hard, and he had a lot of patient teachers. But what he found even more fascinating was learning about Wakandan art.

It was like nothing he had studied much before. Completely alien at first, but the more he learned about it and the more he talked to local artists about it the more it fascinated him. And well… Steve had a lot of time on his hands. Bucky just watched at first, and tried to get Steve to balance out his life a little more, but when he wasn’t there…there was no one who managed to pull Steve away from his art.

But Bucky wasn’t one to take Steve’s shit and keep watching forever. It wasn’t how they worked.

And Steve knew Bucky was working up to something. They knew each other to well for either of them to even try to hide something like this at this point. But even the prospect of Bucky intervening wasn’t enough to drag Steve out of this obsessive new hole he had dug for himself.

 

Steve woke to Bucky’s metal arm lying heavily across his chest, and he knew he was in deep shit. Bucky wasn’t going to let him get away again. What made it even more obvious was that Bucky was already awake and watching him.

“I’m guessing I’m not getting up yet,” Steve said.

“You’re guessing right.”

“Then what are we doing instead?”

“We, my dear, are having a nice morning in bed. As we are going to have at least once a week when I’m home.”

“Only once a week?”

“Preferably more often, but I know how to pick my fights.”

“Buck, I’m…”

“Don’t even try to apologise, punk. I should have stopped you a lot earlier. Sam warned me about this, you know? But I was too stubborn to listen. And I’m not against you doing something you love, but you need to learn some moderation, Stevie. This ain’t healthy.”

Steve was silent for a moment. “I guess I’ll have to do better, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll promise to do better then,” Steve said with a soft smile.

“I expected nothing less.” Bucky smiled back as he leaned in for a kiss.

 

Steve tried after that. He really did. And for the most part it worked. Yes, there were still days when he would wake up early and disappear to make art all day, but he stayed in bed with Bucky a lot these days. After all, he could just pick up a sketch book and draw Bucky when he woke up early and his boyfriend didn’t.

 

**3.**

Retirement or not, Steve still liked to stay in shape. Or at least he acted like he did. If he was completely honest he didn’t actually know if he could be out of shape. The serum worked in weird ways sometimes.

Either way, he accompanied Bucky to sparring sessions at least once a week. And he had more than enough sparring partners, if he needed them. Bucky was always willing, obviously, and their fights rarely ended with a clear winner. They knew each other too well not to anticipate every single dirty trick and movement, and with their strength being pretty evenly matched up these days, they were probably more putting on a show for everyone else than actually training.

Still, it was fun, and whenever they didn’t want to spar with each other there were more than enough others to do it with. T’Challa was around whenever he had the time between his duties, and Okoye and the Dorae Miljae took a special kind of pride in going up against them. Even Nakia took part occasionally.

But some days Steve didn’t come along to work out. Sometimes he just came along to sit down and watch Bucky spar with whoever was around. Shuri joined him occasionally, bringing snacks and egging on her brother. She was mostly there to have fun. But Steve, Steve came to sketch. He filled pages with Bucky’s body frozen in the middle of some motion, or in fighting stance, or just one of the million little things he did around the practice ground. The way his brows drew together when he watched someone make a mistake. Or the small smile when he got to teach a group of kids the right way to punch, a smile that told Steve that Bucky was thinking back to teaching him in the back alleys of Brooklyn.

But what Steve liked most was drawing Bucky as he sparred with others. The way his fighting style matched up to T’Challa’s cat-like grace, the ways he twisted his body out of the way despite the sheer bulk of it. But one of Steve’s personal favourites was his take on one of the times Okoye had beaten him, a proud warrior standing tall above her opponent, her training staff pointing at his throat. Steve had actually made another version of it, where the figure on the ground was less obviously Bucky, and given it to Okoye as a gift.

The general had accepted graciously and hung it on a wall in her office.

 

**4.**

One of Bucky’s favourite things to do when he got to spend time at home, was to drag Steve out and around Wakanda. He showed Steve all the places he had discovered while he was recovering, and got him to try all the new flavours of their new home. Steve loved how relaxed and unguarded he was around the people of Wakanda, and how obviously they had gotten used to his presence and even welcomed him.

Sometimes it seemed like Bucky knew almost all of the vendors at the market, from the old lady selling sweets, to the guy who sold baskets, and he was friends with all of them. When they went out to buy groceries together they came home with a hundred new recipes they should definitely try, and when they just took a walk around the market to pass the time they would inevitably end up getting ice cream and at least one thing they didn’t actually need to get.

But greatest of all was probably watching Bucky with children. Wherever he went they seemed to flock to him, surrounding him and vying for his attention. Bucky seemed only too willing to give it to them. It didn’t matter what game they asked him to play with them, Bucky played all of them, a grin on his face, and always an eye out for anything that could get too dangerous.

White Wolf the children called Bucky, a nickname the royal family had picked up. Steve had been confused by it at first, but when he had asked Bucky had laughed.

“They used to be afraid of me, you know?” he explained. “Back when I first got to be among people again, and they weren’t used to seeing a white person in the flesh. That’s when they came up with the nickname. They just stuck with it even when they realised I’m not all that scary.”

Steve smiled, and the next time they interrupted their leisurely stroll through the city so Bucky could entertain a small horde of children, Steve sat down and pulled out his sketch book and started drawing.

Steve himself soon had his own bunch of kids attached to him when he sat down. There were always the quieter ones, who were less interested in jumping around and playing games. And after Steve had sat down to draw a couple of times, they kind of flocked to him. At first they just watched him draw, then he ended up drawing them and giving them the drawings. The joy in their faces when they got to take one of his drawings home with them warmed Steve’s heart every time.

And then the first children started bringing their own paper and pencils, and somehow Steve became an impromptu art teacher, helping the kids along as they practised and got better and showed him their little projects.

And every piece of art the children gave him to say thank you found its place in their house.

 

**5.**

Having dinner with T’Challa and Shuri, and sometime Ramonda as well, was a bit of a staple in their routines. It had taken Steve a bit to catch on, but he soon realised that Shuri had kind of adopted Bucky as her second older brother, and he could see that Bucky had accepted it. Seeing them together reminded Steve of all the times he had seen Bucky with his own sister. He had loved her and after all he had gone through, it was great to see him act the same way around Shuri.

Meanwhile, Shuri treated him the same way she treated T’Challa, pestering him to let her upgrade the arm again, or coming up with new gadgets for him to use on missions, arguing good naturedly about things. She’d come to their place spontaneously to watch movies she had found and steal their food, and Steve couldn’t even be mad about missing out on an opportunity to cuddle with Bucky when he saw him and Shuri together.

“You know they weren’t always so comfortable?” Ramonda asked Steve one evening when they were both sitting back, watching Shuri tell some story that involved a lot of flailing while T’Challa and Bucky exchanged fond but exasperated looks across the table.

Steve shook his head and the Queen Mother smiled.

“He was very conflicted at the beginning. About everything he had done and what had happened. Shuri obviously didn’t agree with that, and she treated him like it. I know T’Challa agreed with her, but he was a lot more reserved.

“But once Bucky realised that no one held his past against him, it was obvious that he loved Shuri like a sister. You could see it in his bearing when she was around. He was still guarded around a lot of people then, but when Shuri was there he relaxed. He told her stories from before, and she shared her music and her movies with him.

“But he still held himself back. As if he wasn’t sure how T’Challa would react, and overstaying his welcome. I think he only realised when T’Challa and he started exchanging those same looks they’re exchanging now.”

Steve smiled. “You’ve all been very welcoming towards him.”

Ramonda turned to him and smiled. “Every man needs a mother. And who would I be to ignore my children’s happiness?”

Steve could only smile back.

 

It was that conversation with the Queen Mother that inspired Steve for his next piece. It wasn’t large by any means, but he spent hours upon hours on it, because he wanted it to be perfect, and because he made multiple copies.

It was a coloured drawing, held in warm and cosy tones, close to the lighting of their dinner room late in the evening. Shuri, T’Challa and Bucky were sitting around the table, laughing about something with pots and empty plates still standing between them. There was Shuri, laughing openly and joyful in a way that betrayed how young she still was. T’Challa’s laugh looked similar, but a lot more reserved, and where it was obvious that Shuri laughed with her entire being, T’Challa was more contained in himself. Bucky was somewhere between the two of them, his laugh not quite as open as it used to be, but still showing hints of the way Steve remembered it from their youth. Either way it was clear how comfortable Bucky was with them. There wasn’t even a hint of him being guarded, no signs of the perfectly trained operative Steve knew him to be in the field. This wasn’t a brainwashed assassin, not even a superhero, this was just a man laughing with the family he had found in an unexpected place.

 

**\+ 1.**

Steve was greeted with smiles when he finally finished his artworks and gave them to Shuri, T’Challa and Bucky. Shuri hugged him happily, while Bucky gave him a fond smile and kissed the corner of his mouth. Ramonda smiled when she saw them, but the look in her eyes told Steve that there was something he was missing.

 

He didn’t realise what it was until Shuri sat down next to him when he was sketching during another of Bucky’s and T’Challa’s sparring sessions. She was all casual, watching him as she liked to do sometimes.

On this particular day he was sketching a move Bucky had used on him earlier a thing of beauty that Steve had watched mesmerised until his own combat reflexes had kicked in before Bucky could topple him over onto his back. Bucky had laughed and said, “Come on, Stevie, get your head in the game,” but all Steve had been able to think about was how beautiful he looked.

He was trying to catch that very same look again at that moment, with Shuri watching, until she said, “You never draw yourself.”

Steve looked up at her, raising one eyebrow in a silent question, and she shrugged.

“It’s just something I realised. You draw all of us, but you’re never in any of the drawings yourself. Not even when you draw us all together.”

Steve blinked. “It never occurred to me,” he said.

“God, why are all of you white boys so dumb?” Shuri rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’m going to spell it out for you: You’re family, too, not just him. You’re allowed to include yourself. T’Challa knows it, Mama knows it, even Bucky knows it.”

“Oh.” Steve had to blink again.

“Yes. Now you should go and get to work on whatever you’re planning for Mama’s birthday, because she’ll be disappointed if you haven’t gotten it until then.” Shuri grinned and gave him a little shove.

Steve laughed. “Alright, alright, I’ll do it. Just let me finish this first.”

Shuri only nodded and settled in closer to him to watch him finish his sketch. Neither of them saw that Bucky and T’Challa had paused mid-fight to watch them and exchanged smiles.

 

Steve ended up scrapping the painting he had already started working on for Ramonda’s birthday. He had tried to find a place for himself in it, but whatever he did, it felt off-balance somehow. Still, as soon as he had settled on a new subject he found that it came easily to him, and even if he only barely finished in time, by the time he stepped back from the easel he thought he had captured what Ramonda (and Shuri) had wanted him to understand.

Steve was still standing in front of it when Bucky came up from behind and wrapped his arms around him. He pressed a kiss to his neck and Steve knew he was smiling. “She’s gonna love it,” Bucky said.

Steve nodded. “I hope so.”

“Trust me. She’ll be happy that you finally understood what she’s been trying to tell you all along.”

“Not you too, Buck,” Steve said with a chuckle. “I know I’ve been slow to get it.”

Bucky laughed softly. “Well, I’ve only been telling you for a hundred years, it’s about time you got it.”

Steve turned in his arms to make sure that Bucky saw him roll his eyes, but as soon as he met his fond gaze, any snarky reply fled right from his mind.

“I know,” he said instead. “I love you, too Buck.”

“To the end of the line, right pal?”

Steve nodded. “To the end of the line.”

 

Ramonda’s smile when she saw the painting made all the extra work absolutely worth it.

“Thank you,” she said, and hugged Steve, and both of them knew it was for more than just the painting.

The painting itself showed all of them at the landing pad, T’Challa and Bucky still in their uniforms. They stood together in a group, Bucky’s arm wrapped around Steve’s waist, all of them laughing at something, while Ramonda looked at them fondly.

They did, Steve thought, look like a family.


End file.
